Monday, 30 January 2012

Sup bee-hatches, Beaker in your face again to give you the most scientifically accurate opinion of Muppet Treasure Island, also known as "the one with Tim Curry and the boy that sings like a girl".

Remember now, you simple-minded imbeciles? Good.

Following what can only be described as The Fucking Ace Muppet Christmas Carol (I'm campaigning to get it renamed in time for the Blu-ray), someone with at least three quarters of a working brain cell calculated that it might be a good idea to adapt another cock-on work of literature, and fuck me if it didn't turn out to be quite fucking good. Not as good as The Fucking Ace Muppet Christmas Carol, but good enough for another re-branding exercise. The Quite Fucking Good Muppet Treasure Island Blu-ray should be on every kid's Christmas list this year.

When Tim Curry's parents fucked him into existence they must have been watching the Muppets on TV, because he was born for this kind of pantomime bollocks, I swear. Nobody looks more comfortable in a film full of talking cushions than Cuzza. I think he may have actually believed he was a Muppet, the poor deluded bastard. Sadly the same cannot be said for the boy that sings like a girl. Let's be honest, he's fucking shite. He can't act, he looks like a young Pat fucking Sharp and he sings like a girl. And as for his range of facial expressions, well, if you thought Miss Piggy's were limited:

Fuck Ing Hell.

Fortunately I pointed out to the director that we appeared to have hired a walking braindead mullet, and as a direct result not only did Curry get more screen time, but yours truly got the chance to do a bit more than just get humiliated by that fucker Bunsen again. Christ knows what that boy's up to now, assuming he survived being wedgied till his colon bled every day at school after this film came out. Probably ended up in the Casualty / The Bill revolving door of actors, the poor bastard.

The rest of the songs that aren't sung by the boy that sings like a girl are pretty fucking great, and you can thank Hans Zimmer for that, the crazy potato-faced German. His music is about as piratey as it gets, and you can thank this film for his great music on the otherwise shit-munchingly awful Pirates Of The Caribbean films.

There's other good stuff in The Quite Fucking Good Muppet Treasure Island but I really can't be arsed to sit here and spoon-feed it to you so why don't you just take my word for it? I've literally got a million better things to do than talk about fucking Muppets all day. Like watch Muppets From Space, which as far as I can tell is not adapted from a great work of literature and will therefore almost certainly be a massive mug of camel wank.

Thursday, 26 January 2012

1983 was the year there were two James Bonds, which would have been handy if, as her name suggested, Octopussy had turned out to be some kind of mutant super-villainess with eight vaginas (the script would have written itself - Connery: "I'll have sex with these three, you roger more"). Sadly the cold, harsh reality is that rogue Bond flick Never Say Never Again turned out to be one of the worst films ever made, and Octopussy - though more entertaining than its predecessor - prolongs the agony of having to watch a walking, bewigged corpse bumble through various exotic locations, casually racially and sexually insulting everyone he comes by. Or in.

Nobody is safe from the script's cringing xenophobia and rampant chauvinism: Indians are simple curry-munchers, Russians are mad as eggs and Germans are fat, beer-drinking, sausage-eating, pork pie hat-wearing VW Beetle drivers, while women who do diligent work for Her Majesty's secret service are required to do nothing but smile politely when a senior colleague broadcasts video of their tits around the office. And if you don't like it when a dirty old man forces himself on you, by all means say no, but then it's best if you just change your mind completely and let him get on with it. With any luck he'll die of old age before he gets it up.

Just look how turned on these chicks are.

Having already created one of literature's most odious arseholes in 'Flashman', Octopussy's screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser has a go at turning James Bond into an equally abhorrent shit. Not that that would require much effort, but Fraser also makes Bond look like a complete tool by having him do Tarzan impressions and wear full clown makeup. It's a wonder the character survived to spy another day, but by this point Roger Moore could have bitten the head off a kitten while making a crack about eating pussy and '80s audiences would have LOLled their fluorescent socks off.

To Octopussy's credit, it at least tries out a more complex plot than usual, with enough twists and turns to bamboozle anyone who didn't stop paying attention when General Orlov nonsensically smashes a half-million pound work of art into expensive pieces of eggshell, and the action is, as always, stunning. Despite all the non-PC hilarity at which we 21st century snobs now turn up our noses, it's still stupidly good fun, carried along by another great John Barry score - even if it does shamelessly rip off Laurie Johnson's theme from The Avengers, an obvious influence on Moore's tenure.

7 randomly selected seconds of Laurie Johnson's music for The Avengers

7 randomly selected seconds of John Barry's music for Octopussy

As is usually the case with Roger Moore's Bond films, what's far nicer to look at than Roger Moore are the locations, and Octopussy is no exception. Almost half the film takes place in an unnamed town in India (actually Udaipur), and director John Glen milks it for all it's worth. But how realistic is the film's depiction of India? Because of my selfless devotion to BlogalongaBond, I recently visited Udaipur just so I could sound like I knew what I was on about when I brought you...

Or, if you like, The Incredible Suit's Holiday Snaps.

Udaipur is located in the northern state of Rajasthan, absolutely nowhere near the Taj Mahal (1). So when Bond's helicopter flies past the famous monument before dropping him off to meet tennis-playing snake-charmer Vijay, we are being LIED TO by nearly 400 MILES.

On his arrival Bond checks into, and later plays backgammon against Kamal Khan at, the Shiv Niwas Palace Hotel (2), an unspeakably fancy gaff attached to the 400+ years old City Palace. I visited the palace but people like me don't get to go inside the hotel without selling several kidneys. Still, it looks nice from a distance:

After beating Khan at backgammon and racially abusing his own Indian colleagues, Bond is chased at high speed through the streets (3) in a tuk-tuk without running over a single cow. This is fairly unlikely given that you can't walk more than a few feet through any Indian town without coming across obstacles like this:

Still, manage it he does, before he's forced to abandon his vehicle and take an 11,000 mile detour through the 007 stage at Pinewood (4), where a crowd of extras is gathered to provide clichés for the film to perpetuate. Here's what Bond sees in the middle of Udaipur:

And here's what I saw:

It's my own fault for not going on Dubious Racial Stereotypes Day.

After a pleasant evening spent nobbing a lady 23 years his junior, Bond is quite rightly bashed over the head and imprisoned in Kamal Khan's Monsoon Palace (5). The Palace has been derelict for many years and is inconveniently located on a mountaintop on the outskirts of Udaipur, making it both a pain in the arse to visit and very difficult to see in photos.

Naturally Bond eventually escapes from this inescapable fortress, and after ploughing his way through a safari full of atrocious jokes and Tarzan impressions, makes his way to Octopussy's floating house of hotties. It's actually the exclusive Lake Palace Hotel on Jagniwas Island (6), and there was about as much chance of me visiting it as there was of me finding a convenient hollowed-out crocodile in which to get there. I got within pointing distance though, but sadly was unable to spot any ladies emerging naked from the pool. More's the pity.

And that's the end of my holiday photo album the BlogalongaBond Guide To Udaipur. Suffice to say the real Udaipur bears little resemblance to that of Octopussy, but many of the locations are still visible from the outside and it's a nice place to visit if you're passing. While you're there, why not stop at one of Udaipur's many cafés and see if there's a film on?

LOL, "Octopussay".

The auction scene

Proving that Bond isn't necessarily at his best when blowing shit up, jumping off shit or having sex with shit, Octopussy's simple and witty auction scene is classic Fleming, adapted as it is from a similar scene in his short story 'The Property Of A Lady'. With Roger Moore by now much more convincing sitting in a chair than doing anything else, he manages to successfully advance the plot while being smooth, daring and a little bit reckless, and he doesn't even need a stunt double to hold his eggs (not a euphemism).

Steven Berkoff

Bonkers as a box of burning badgers at the best of times, Howlin' Mad Berkoff goes maximental for his role as power-crazy Soviet General Orlov. Whether bawling about the decadence of the west, sulking like a baby in a meeting of top USSR military bods or ordering a minion to "follow that car" (along a railway, obviously), Berkoff cranks the crackers up to eleven and the film is all the better for it.

Bonus fact: "The Orlov" is the name of a 190-carat diamond which is part of the Kremlin's actual haul of gems (featured in the film), and is known for its domed, forward-facing top, just like the Berkoff bonce. They don't just throw this stuff together, you know.

The train sequence

While Rodge was doing his best Bonding in a nice comfy seat at Sotheby's, stuntman Martin Grace was risking his life and shattering his limbs hanging off the side of a train near Peterborough. The filming of this scene, in which Grace runs across the top and dangles off the side of a speeding train, resulted in a) a terrific action set-piece and b) a pulverised pelvis for Grace after he smashed into a concrete stanchion at high speed. The bit of the behind-the-scenes doc on the DVD (called Inside Octopussy, which coincidentally is where Bond ends the film) that shows his first post-accident visit to the set, and the cast and crew's outpouring of affection for him, made me get something in my eye possibly.

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Remember 2011? The year of all that stuff that happened and those things that were great and those other things that were a bit disappointing and that time we did that thing? Me neither. That's why I've cobbled together this playlist of some of last year's best movie music to remind us all of a simpler time. So why not wallow in the 2011 nostalgia by pretending a new Bond film has yet to be announced, incessantly banging on about Ryan Gosling and using the word "amazeballs" as you...

Friday, 20 January 2012

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

What's happened to Steven Soderbergh? The man who made Out Of Sight, The Limey and Traffic seems to have been kidnapped and replaced with a Soderbot programmed to shoot potentially explosive movies with all the verve and elan of an Open University programme about the history of ironing.

Last year's Contagion was just about fine despite stepping in the odd cliché-cowpat that '90s Soderbergh would have dodged in some effortlessly stylish way, but Haywire takes a thrilling premise and drains it of anything that might raise your pulse above a steady beat. I'm not saying it's dull, but I had to imagine a shark into each shot to stop myself nodding off.

Haywire is at least notable for the talents of former mixed martial artist Gina Carano who, as an actor, is an excellent former mixed martial artist; her skill at kicking a man into small pieces is matched only by her inability to elicit any interest from the audience. Still, the kicking men bits are undeniably impressive: the kind of fights a Bond film would shamelessly rip off, but cut mostly without a score (which is good) and dispassionately shot as if they were polite disagreements in a Yorkshire tea room (which is not).

The point of shooting a fight in this way is obviously a) so we can get a good look at Carano flinging her legs around like a windmill in a hurricane and b) to demonstrate the everyday nature of a government-hired assassin killing people with her thighs, but in successfully conveying the mundanity of femur-based assassination it just comes across as, well, mundane, and there's little else in the film to fall back on.

Perhaps aware that Carano might not be able to carry the film by herself, the Soderbot surrounds her with a dream supporting cast, some of which get to share a tumble with her, but most of which he insists on enforcing the banality of the job by having them either stand around and not do much, or sit around and not do much. Antonio Banderas sits around and strokes his magnificent beard, the mighty Bill Paxton bimbles about a house experimenting with both sitting around and standing around, while Michael Douglas is just looking for some breasts to point at.

If you can get past all that and Ewan McGregor's appalling haircut maybe you'll enjoy Haywire, but don't hold your breath for the Soderbot's next film, Magic Mike, which stars Channing "Po" Tatum and Alex Pettyfer as strippers. At least Matthew McConaughey's in it to add authenticity.

Monday, 16 January 2012

Sup bitches? Beaker here with another hilariously late BlogalongaMuppets. What can I say, I'm a popular muppet, and there are a lot of lonely ladymuppets out there who're grateful for the company of someone with a comedy phallus for a head at Christmas.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about The Muppet Christmas Carol, by far the best reason yet for this fucking depressing monthly realisation that we muppets aren't the world's greatest filmmakers. Until now I was going to suggest we should all be mothballed or turned into dusters for all the joy we've inflicted on cinema audiences, but fortunately we saved our pathetic furry assholes with not just the best muppet film yet, but one of the best Christmas movies ever, and if anyone disagrees with that you can kick 'em in the baubles with compliments from me.

Me with that unbearable twat Bunsen. I had the cameraman

fired for incorrectly focusing this shot on Johnny No-Eyes.

A tiny percentage of the credit should probably go to Charles Dickens for writing a structurally flawless story in the first place, and it doesn't hurt that for once the songs aren't utter shitballs. Even Gonzo doesn't fuck it up this time - his totes meta narrating gig might disappear up his own Gonzhole but at least it's bloody funny. However it's clear who the stars of the show are: me, obviously, and my old pal Sir Michael Fucking Caine.

Nice hat. If you like looking like a cock with

a rolled-up johnny perched on the end.

Mike rules this film like a boss, and between him, Dickens and me, we created movie gold. It was my idea to hand him my scarf at the end - he wasn't sure, but I said "Listen up, shitbrick. This is the emotional core of the whole fucking film. You might not have a clue what you're doing but I know my shit, so take the fucking scarf and try not to hang yourself with it." In the end he saw that I was right and repaid me by sending a few of his female fans my way. They were knocking on a bit but you learn a lot from the older birds.

So, yeah. Very good. Well done us. Now fuck off will you, I'm trying to watch Muppet Treasure Island.

Technically it's spot on, but not in a clinical way - McQueen is more than just a master of all the tools and talent at his disposal, and, having arrived in the movie world three years ago with the equally stark Hunger, cements his position as a member of an elite group of fearless and original filmmakers.

Michael Fassbender's troubled sex addict Brandon is a perfectly realised character, the likes of which you rarely see in cinema these days, and the film is admirably unafraid to tackle the issues presented by a man who simply can't stop himself fucking things. It's been hailed as provocative, and hopefully it's an an openness and willingness to discuss stuff like sex addiction that's provoked, rather than spurts of outrage from middle-England Daily Mail readers. It's a film that needs to be seen, if only to open our eyes to a side of life most of us are either unaware of or unwilling to even contemplate.

All of which makes it massively annoying that Shame left me absolutely flaccid. I didn't feel anything while I watched it. Not a sausage. With one eye on the screen and one on my watch, I found myself incapable of arousing any empathy or sympathy for Brandon, and the film didn't occupy my thoughts from the moment I withdrew from the cinema until the time I came to write this.

It's hard to put my finger on why I failed to connect with Shame bearing in mind I admire so much about it; maybe I need empathetic characters, maybe I need backstory, maybe I'm just not a fan of character studies. But for me the film feels simultaneously too long and too short: I felt like it could have done what it did in a fraction of the time, but with an extended length could have taken us deeper and more satisfyingly into Brandon's fractured psyche.

But these are minor quibbles. Shame and I just weren't meant to get it on, it's that simple. It's still better than most of the junk out there though, so fuck it, go and see it.

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

MGM yesterday announced the wallet-troubling, marriage-threatening release of the complete James Bond film collection on Blu-ray, timed perfectly to miss all but the final instalment of BlogalongaBond. It's just ninety quid at Amazon and you would be certifiably insane not to buy it.

At a rough count, and ignoring those slightly awkward shots of them walking through the gunbarrel at the begining, that trailer features 20 shots of Daniel Craig, 12 of Pierce Brosnan, nine of Sean Connery, five of Roger Moore, three of Timothy Dalton and NONE of George Lazenby. Not even a single frame from his only Bond film. FOR SHAME.

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

As reported yesterday by Deadline, Kim Novak - who I sincerely hope you are aware starred in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo - took surprising measures yesterday to air her views about The Artist. It turns out she was unimpressed by the film's use of a few minutes of Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score, and when I say "unimpressed" I mean "violently sexually assaulted".

In a press release and Hollywood trade ad, Novak begins her perfectly reasonable point by stating, perhaps a little melodramatically:

"I want to report a rape."

Holy shitballs Kim, the horror of sexual violence being perpetrated on a septuagenarian is unthinkable! How did this distressing event unfold and why are you casually advertising it to movie insiders rather than informing the authorities?

"My body of work has been violated by The Artist,"

she continues. Ah. I see. So, nobody's actually been raped here, but somebody's used some music from a film you were in once for a new film? I can kind of see how the two might be comparable.

In fairness to the crackers old hag, I myself was surprised and a little annoyed when I first watched The Artist last year and immediately recognised Herrmann's music. It stuck out like a sore thumb in amongst the rest of Ludovic Bource's excellent original score, and I was pulled so far out of the film that it was all I could think about when talking to anyone else who'd seen it. Surprisingly though, most of them - and I'm talking about people who talk about films for a living - hadn't noticed it.

On a second viewing, though, knowing full well it was coming, the Vertigo music seemed to blend in effortlessly. I let it float over me in waves of romance, which is essentially what it sounds like, and concentrated on what was going on onscreen, and by the end I had decided that The Artist was my favourite film of the past twelve months.

When Deadline reported the story of Kim Novak's insane exclamation, they effectively told her to shut the fuck up by asking:

"How many will recognize music from a film released in 1958?"

This in itself is almost as bizarre as Novak's demented ramblings, because Vertigo isn't "a film released in 1958". The Cry Baby Killer is "a film released in 1958". The Black Orchid is "a film released in 1958". Vertigo is arguably the greatest work of art ever committed to film. Some people will recognise it, some people won't like it, and some people will have already decided they don't like The Artist for much more obvious reasons.

Novak's point is a fair one but it's immediately undone by the utterly indefensible way in which she makes it, and the naivety with which she seems to believe that all cinema - including Vertigo and its score - is 100% original. Does she go around crying rape whenever a film uses a song which wasn't written specifically for that movie, or just when it offers her a chance to remind the world she isn't dead yet? She even has the balls to say:

"Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart can’t speak for themselves, but I can,"

shortly followed by:

"It is morally wrong of people in our industry to use and abuse famous pieces of work to gain attention and applause for other than what the original work was intended."

It's fine, however, to speak on behalf of dead people to gain attention and applause, her implication being that Hitchcock and Stewart would be just as outraged as she is about having their bodies of work raped. Seems to me like she's forcing her words into their dead mouths like, well, a penis being forced into an unwilling vagina. Hitchcock would have found the irony delicious.

The Artist would probably have got away scott free if it had borrowed something more obscure, but its director Michel Hazanavicius made a conscious choice to use that piece of music because it's his way of paying his respects to the art that inspired him. Maybe his decision isn't to everyone's taste, and if you don't like it, well, by all means say so. But Kim Novak's ill-advised rape comparison doesn't seem to have made anyone like The Artist any less, it's just made them hate her a lot more. Evidently she prefers being thought of as a senile old cow to being presumed dead.

Monday, 9 January 2012

For the second time in his career, Steven Spielberg has knocked out an entertaining family favourite and a weepy, Oscar-baiting war epic in the same year. But while The Secret Adventures Of Tintin The Unicorn came close to Jurassic Park in terms of cock-waggling fun, War Horse is no Schindler's List. Unless Schindler's list read: "Horse, war, boy, massive amounts of cheese, comedy goose". Which is fairly unlikely.

The biggest difference is that War Horse is based on a children's book, so there are none of the horrors of war that defined Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan. In their place is a simplistic and calculated exercise in heartstring-pulling that requires the cynicism-free heart of a child to sit through, lest you bring up your dinner on the person in front when forced to swallow some of the most contrived John Williams-flavoured cheesecake since Hayden Christensen tried to nob Natalie Portman in a Naboo field. All of which would be fine if there was more to entertain the under-12s, but short of the aforementioned and underused comedy goose, the melodrama to funballs ratio is tediously high.

There are, of course, a couple of the requisite Spielberg moments you'd expect, and Janusz Kaminski's cinematography renders the whole thing undeniably gorgeous in a ridiculously false, permanently-backlit way, but everything else is just so obvious, to the point where, when a heartless soldier is required to pull a gun on our hero's lovely horse, it's none other than cinema's favourite rentabastard Eddie Marsan who's asked to pull the trigger. Still, at least he's not expected to affect the go-to English countryside-dweller's accent favoured by half the cast:

Still, it's fun to play cream-of-British-acting-talent-desperate-to-be-in-a-Spielberg-film-even-if-it's-just-for-a-couple-of-scenes bingo, and the presence of Peter Mullan provides exciting tension as we wait to see if he decapitates or kicks to death any horses. I'd just rather the horse had been a supporting player and the film's true star could have taken centre stage, but for now it looks like War Goose is still some way off.

Friday, 6 January 2012

Jesus Craps, 2012 is upon us already. And like politicians in an election campaign, it promises a great deal. Also like politicians in an election campaign, however, it cannot be trusted further than it can be punted off the doorstep with a hob-nailed boot.

So in the spirit of cold, harsh realism, here are nine films (I was aiming for ten but lost the will to live) coming in the next twelve months that you would be best advised not to get excited about, for history teaches us that they shall be naught but shit on the brand new trainers of your hopes. Enjoy!

The Dark Knight Rises

The potential So much fanboy urine has been excreted in the name of this film that the internet now smells like an old people's home, which means that TDKR will comfortably become the biggest grossing film of all time even if it's three hours of Michael Caine dusting Wayne Manor in his pants. What could possibly go wrong? With The Dark Knight being (whisper it) not as good as Batman Begins, and previews of the new film featuring a villain mumbling incomprehensibly in a funny (i.e. British) accent, alarm bells are ringing. Not that you can hear them over *BRRRAAAAAHHHHHMMMMMMMM* Yes, thank you Hans.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The potential The hasty reboot of Sam Raimi's still-warm franchise could well solve its predecessors' biggest problems: a CG hero that moved like Miner Willy (google it, kidz), and cinema's least sympathetic love interest ever in Kirsten Dunst's self-obsessed whingecake Mary-Jane Watson.What could possibly go wrong? There won't be enough action. There'll be too much action. Not enough web-swinging. Too much web-swinging. Andrew Garfield's too old. Emma Stone's not sexy enough. The whole film looks like a video game. Something something mechanical web shooters. Take your pick: something about this film is bound to suck the mechanical tentacles off a human/octopus hybrid.

Dredd

The potential It's that rare thing: a reboot actually worth rebooting, hopefully taking a giant can of air freshener to the stench left in cinemas after Stallone shat Judge Dredd onto an unsuspecting audience in 1995. This version stars Karl Urban, because Josh Holloway wasn't famous enough when they cast it.What could possibly go wrong? Critics are dusting off their 17-year-old "Dreddful" reviews in preparation after seeing the first stills from the film, in which Dredd's helmet looks several sizes too big for his noggin and Urban seems a little too weedy to fill out the futuristic rozzer's suit. Apparently the rest of the cast will be populated by midgets and children in order to give Dredd a slightly more fear-inducing presence than a newborn kitten.

The potential Peter Jackson's new film about the offspring of a hobo and a rabbit might just be worth keeping him from cracking on with the eagerly awaited Tintin sequel.What could possibly go wrong?The Hobbit's success hinges on two things: people accepting Martin Freeman as a hobbit rather than Tim From The Office with curly hair (admittedly unlikely to be a problem outside the UK), and Peter Jackson not turning in a Kong-esque three-hour vanity project. I hope he's back on the burgers, because don't forget: fat PJ made The Lord Of The Rings but it was skinny PJ who brought us The Lovely Bones.

Prometheus

The potential A new Alien film these days usually means Paul WS Anderson, incomprehensible nonsense and large piles of Shrek. But with Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof and Michael Fassbender involved, it 's finally time to take the franchise seriously again.What could possibly go wrong? A much-loved series. Years gone by since the last good entry. A prequel from the director of the original film. A director who hasn't made anything as good as the original since. You know what this is? It's Alien Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

The Avengers

The potential The world's biggest collection of biceps gathers for at least two and a half hours of winking, eyebrow-raising and staring at Scarlett Johansson's ass. It's like a party at Roger Moore's house.What could possibly go wrong? Let's be honest, none of the feature-length trailers for The Avengers have set the world on fire, have they? Only Thor managed to pull off two full hours of watchability, and there's no way Robert Downey Jr's going to let some hammer-wielding hippie steal the show. Still, Scarlett Johansson's ass.

Skyfall

The potential Bond is back, in case you hadn't noticed, and he's making all sorts of promises about how amazing Episode XXIII will be. And with "proper director" Sam Mendes directing, surely it's guaranteed smashmageddon?

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Years of public opinion have finally swayed Dreamworks to admit that the word "Shrek" is now wholly interchangeable with the word "shit". Look forward to more direct-to-DVD spin-offs such as Christmas special Holy Shrek, "adult" version Fiona Takes It Up The Shrekker and perennial fave Shrek The Bed, This Is One Shrekky Piece Of Shrek.